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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248497">Rapprochement</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity'>stateofintegrity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>MASH (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 09:15:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,474</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27248497</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stateofintegrity/pseuds/stateofintegrity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Follows the episode “Foreign Affairs” and interrogates what Charles meant when he said he could not change who he is.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Maxwell Klinger/Charles Emerson Winchester III</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rapprochement</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Lebanon has a high percentage of French speakers, so this HC felt perfectly reasonable to me.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>He had been writing an (admittedly self pitying) letter to Honoria when the words of the camp clerk went in one ear and out the other. Then he paused, lifted his head. “Klinger? Did you just offer me condolences in French?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maxwell continued to sort and dispense mail; Charles had thought, more than once, that he ought to have an assistant to deal with Hunnicutt’s correspondence alone. “You looked like you needed ‘em, Major.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In </span>
  <em>
    <span>French</span>
  </em>
  <span>? You speak French? How?” It made him wonder, too, how much of his failed romance Klinger had overheard - and </span>
  <em>
    <span>understood</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He felt a little sick at the thought. Winchester had known that </span>
  <em>
    <span>Potter</span>
  </em>
  <span> understood him - but the CO had just used Winchester’s affair as a springboard to reminisce about his time in France during WWI. Klinger… Charles was far less certain of what the younger man’s thoughts on these matters might be… and less certain, still, of why this left him unsettled. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My mom speaks it,” Max explained. “She taught me a little. Mostly fairy stories and stuff. And hey, since we’re talking,” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, without putting a single bobby pin or ruffle out of place (just his top was feminine today) the pretty Corporal proceeded to tell him that it hadn’t been the truth, what he’d told the girl. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles had no idea how he had heard what he’d said anyway - was he that central to camp gossip? - but he knew he didn’t want to hear this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Klinger…” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The slighter man wasn’t cowed by his obvious unease. “Yeah, yeah, put me on report after. It wasn’t your truth, Major. I just wanted to tell you that it’s okay. You’re gonna be okay.” He squeezed his shoulder to emphasize this, then turned away.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You cannot... you cannot say these things!” </span>
  <em>
    <span>You have no right!!</span>
  </em>
  <span> the cry came in his mind - but wasn’t Max the best friend he had in Korea? His baby sister had a picture of the two of them on her bureau, for heaven's sake! </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Somebody’s gotta.” He switched back into French to say,  “I can’t stand watching you walk around hurt, like you’re worthless. It’s not true. So, that mademoiselle wouldn’t fit your life - it doesn’t mean it’s all done and over with.” He ended with,  “And hey, I said ‘em so nobody else could hear. Doesn’t that count? What’s the Winchester word for that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles sighed. “Winchester words” were Klinger’s way of asking for the elevated form of something, for access to Charles' nigh-unlimited vocabulary. “The word you are searching for is ‘discretion,’ and, yes, while I appreciate yours, you do not seem to understand how many chances I have already lost. Do you understand, Max, how very odd it is to be a man of my wealth and status and be unmarried at my age?” His eyes pleaded for Maxwell to see beyond the words - under or behind them perhaps. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Max just smiled that soft smile of his that somehow managed to feel like an embrace and still chide him for being overdramatic. “It’s not too late. You can make your own life apart from all that stuff your family wants. You can have somebody. You’ll see.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time passed in the army camp. Wounded came in. Healing men - saved men - were sent out to recuperate in Seoul or Tokyo. And Charles thought a good deal about Maxwell trying to comfort him over a two day fling. Finally, he sat with the Corporal at the O Club (he was still trying to teach Klinger to drink cognac and failing) and said, “There are two things I have been struggling to ask you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His hand was arranged against the glass to hand-warm the liquid within it, just as Charles had taught him. It made the doctor smile. “Shoot, Major.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When you spoke of truth… it was not </span>
  <em>
    <span>class</span>
  </em>
  <span> you were speaking of, was it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger snapped to in a way Charles had never seen him do at reveille, and he didn’t ask what the other man meant or pretend forgetfulness or confusion. “It coulda been, if that’s what would help, sir. I don’t want to upset you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For some reason this wish for his comfort and equilibrium upset him more than that conversation had. “Damn it, Maxwell! I do not think you can carry on calling me ‘sir’ and proceed in this manner.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Corporal neither flinched nor set his glass aside. He said only, simply, “Respect, sir.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Major sighed. “Charles, please. I do not believe I have done much to inspire respect here, and yours least of all.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Want me to say it in French, sir?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It shocked Charles nearly out of his chair and when he looked up he was looking into eyes that were as dark and deep as any forest in a poem: hunted doe eyes - earnest, helpless - hurt? </span>
  <em>
    <span>You were jealous</span>
  </em>
  <span>? “I want you to speak clearly in any language I understand!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It made him chuckle. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you laughing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just that I think that about you a lot. You know how much stuff I have to look up when you talk? I mean, usually it’s just you insulting me, but sometimes I learn something good.” He now knew, for instance, that his current costume was “androgynous,” that the Major’s eyes were “luminous,” and that Charles’ decision to banish Martine from his arms had conferred a certain amount of “clemency” on his own battered heart… but he didn’t like that it came at the cost of the other man’s pain.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>You research my speech</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to understand, yeah. Colonel Potter helps me spell stuff.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was more than he’d ever been given. It made him dizzy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For godsakes, man, </span>
  <em>
    <span>why</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No reason that matters, I’d guess</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Klinger sidestepped the question. “You wanna ask me whatever it was? You said two things, right?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did. Before, when we spoke, you said I would, ah, not be alone. Not always. Why are you so confident when you are yet alone, yourself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger closed his eyes. There was probably a Winchester word for this, too. Charles was being… what? Heedless. There it was. Heedless of his pain. Well, being so far above him, the Major didn’t always take time to look down and see. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A rueful smile rose to his mouth as he shaped an answer. “I’m not like you. Not even close. Trust me - someone’ll see those eyes of yours across a room and they’ll move heaven and earth to get you if they have to. She just wasn’t the one.” He lifted his glass in a toast. “To the right one, sir.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles echoed the gesture but could not speak the words. Suddenly a French vintage was the very last thing he wanted to be drinking down, after all.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>***</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The Major waited and wondered for as long as he could, waited until the pain became a flock of blackbirds, wings whirring, under his breastbone. The edges of their feathers and their sharp feet scoured his heart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he could think of nothing to settle them - no song or poem or book - he went to the only place in Korea he truly felt comfortable and waited for Maxwell to return. When he did, he nodded to the color wheel pinned by the make-shift vanity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have seen this a thousand times, I think.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sir?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This palette of yours. But I have never seen you wear anything in any of these colors.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It warmed the Corporal to think that somewhere in that expansive mind, his image lived in all of its costumes and colors. “Never got it right,” he admitted. “Spindrift’s the closest. A custom dye job might get closer. But it would have to change when I moved - maybe change with what I felt. They don’t make cloth with that kind of magic in it.” He’d thought about trying to thread the dominant color with silver, but what was the point? He might clutch the fabric in his hands, sure, but they would stay empty otherwise.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And your model for the singular color you are seeking was?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knew better than to answer with the truth, but the truth came out anyway. “You have a mirror, sir.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hearing this made the Major clumsy, made him knock things to the floor. Max knelt before him, gathering notes. </span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Wait a minute - </span>
  </em>
  <b>
    <em>notes</em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were not kidding.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sir?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“These are definitions.” A scrap lay in his palm, read: “</span>
  <b>interlace: </b>
  <span>verb: to cross one another, typically passing alternately over and under, as if woven together; intertwine. To unite or arrange (threads, strips, parts, branches, etc.) so as to intercross one another, passing alternately over and under; to mingle; blend.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure. I already told you about that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Interlace</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Charles thought of when he might have used such a word, prayed it had not been to describe his fingers tangled with that girl’s. “I thought… I thought you to be … playing, scheming,” he admitted, carefully placing the papers back where they had come from.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Never about you. Hey, get that look offa your face, sir. I’m not gonna ask you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not going to ask me for what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For you. Your life. For </span>
  <em>
    <span>anything</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Not ever. I know it’s not for me. I’m a lot less right for you than that French girl.” He tried to joke. “Your sister would get to call you for a change, then, I bet. Hey, it’s okay you figured it out, but it’s nothing you need to worry about, okay?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>No, dear, nothing for me to concern myself with, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Charles thought, disbelieving. </span>
  <em>
    <span>It is only your heart - naked and bleeding and held outstretched in your hands. It is only love. Love you will keep alive without hope, love that must hurt you. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He reached down, rested his fingers on the kneeling Corporal’s face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t sir, please.” He trembled, Charles saw, hard as he fought to do otherwise. “I can be a lotta things… but I can’t be a bandage or a shelter or whatever you need to get over that French girl. Not for you. Not for that. C’mon, sir. Lemme up.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles took his hand instead. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Max had never had that hand around his. It made his own hand feel tiny - a pearl in one of those big shells he’d seen the girls dive for once in Jeju, a kitten snuggled into the side of a tiger. He had hated Martine a little for turning the Major’s head by just stepping onto the base when he could barely even win the smallest part of his regard… but he felt sorry for her now if she had felt this and been asked to let go. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Seems like we’re gonna have more in common, mademoiselle, than worrying about panty lines</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look terrible, darling,” Charles informed him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So do you.” But then, the Major was grieving what he’d lost. Max sighed; it looked like he was going to be joining him.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do I really hurt you so much?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Losing you will. I knew I was gonna have to at the end of this thing. Didn’t count on it coming twice but, hey -  maybe I’ll do better next time for the practice.” Tears stood in his eyes. Charles wanted to make them fall just to kiss them away. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You always see the good in everything,” he said - and it sounded like a criticism. “Must you always smile through pain?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t always.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles read the very meaningful look he received, winced. “My Gallic romance?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ripped my heart right out, sir. If it’s okay to say so.” He’d said the rest; this felt like a small addition. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles squeezed his hand, asking forgiveness in a touch. “Maxwell, you were right.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He forced something like a laugh just to keep from sobbing. “Never thought I’d hear you say that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Very funny. You were right… about me. I thought… I thought if a woman could inspire something in me - anything - it might be my last chance to be what my family wished. I was excited not for the girl but for that promise of being normal. Being the good son.” He squeezed his hand again, never wanted to let go. “It died quickly.  I did tell her the truth - I cannot change who I am. And who I am… I was not made for such a match.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Max shook his head, the gesture slow and painful to observe. “So now you’re gonna what? Turn all the way around from normal and ruin your life with me? Can’t let you do that, sir.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pain that went through him was so severe that his mind couldn’t help but turn to cardiac arrest. “You imagine yourself a second choice? A form of rebellion? Darling, </span>
  <em>
    <span>no</span>
  </em>
  <span>. I swear it.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah? What did you swear to that girl?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had built palaces for the two of them, for he and Martine, but they had been made of sand. Even bringing them to life in speech, he’d know he would never live inside of them. “Maxwell, you made yourself into my best friend. The only one I have ever had. God knows I tried to stop you. Allowing yourself to be mine, entire, should be easy after that.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Klinger sighed, neck bowed. “Never worked so hard on anything since my section eight, sir. But I’m tired now, get it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles lifted his chin, smiled into his eyes. “Allow me to do the work from here on out, pet. Let me court you. Care for you. Win you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oui,” Max thought, sounded like “we” - could they be that? A united thing? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And when it’s over? There’s no Red Cross for me, sir.” And, he thought, no charitable organization that would help him mend the wounds that the loss of Charles Emerson Winchester III would rip right across his heart muscles. “Where do I go when you remember you’re a Winchester and I’m a low class Corporal in a dress?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Charles had never been so sure in his life. “Home with me. It has never been much of one. I have cowered in the corners, afraid to live there honestly. I believe you could show me how.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sound of him, the confidence in his gaze, was too much for the man who’d loved him hopelessly, fruitlessly, helplessly for months. “You got your chance, sweet talker. Don’t make me regret you, Charles.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not for a single second of our lives, Max. Not one.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It sounded a perfectly Winchestrian sort of brag, Max thought, but if he was trapped in Korea anyway, it might be worth sticking around to see that Charles backed it up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For his part, Charles never regretted trading a French accent for Max’s French maid uniform… and he never regretted being brave enough to take the chance on becoming who he really was, especially as this truest version of himself got to fall asleep with Maxwell in his arms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>End! </span>
</p><p>
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